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UK serviceman dies in Afghan raid | UK serviceman dies in Afghan raid |
(8 minutes later) | |
A UK serviceman has been killed during a dramatic raid to rescue a kidnapped journalist in Afghanistan, the UK's defence ministry has confirmed. | A UK serviceman has been killed during a dramatic raid to rescue a kidnapped journalist in Afghanistan, the UK's defence ministry has confirmed. |
He died in a firefight with the Taliban during the operation to free New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell. Next of kin have been informed, the MoD said. | He died in a firefight with the Taliban during the operation to free New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell. Next of kin have been informed, the MoD said. |
Mr Farrell, who holds British and Irish nationality, was "extracted" by "a lot of soldiers", the New York Times said. | |
Journalist Sultan Munadi, who was working as an interpreter, also died. | |
'I'm free' | |
Mr Farrell, 46, had travelled to Kunduz in northern Afghanistan to investigate an air strike last Friday on two hijacked fuel tankers when he was kidnapped. | |
The New York Times website reported he phoned the foreign editor of the newspaper at about 0030 BST (2330 GMT) on Wednesday and said: "I'm out! I'm free." Mr Farrell said he also called his wife. | |
In a telephone call to his newspaper, he said he and his captors had heard helicopters approach before the dramatic rescue. | |
"We were all in a room, the Talibs all ran, it was obviously a raid," Mr Farrell told the New York Times. "We thought they would kill us. We thought should we go out." | |
The reporter said he ran outside with his interpreter, who AFP news agency reports was a 34-year-old man working in Afghanistan while on a break from university studies in Germany. | |
"There were bullets all around us. I could hear British and Afghan voices," he continued. | |
The correspondent said father-of-two Mr Munadi advanced shouting: "Journalist! Journalist!" But the translator was shot and collapsed. | |
Mr Farrell said he did not know whether the shots had been fired by militants or their rescuers. | |
He said he dived into a ditch and after a minute or two, shouted: "British hostage!" | |
Mr Farrell then heard British voices telling him to come over and as he did, saw the body of Mr Munadi. | |
Some reports from Afghanistan suggest that British special forces were involved in the rescue. | |
But a UK defence ministry spokeswoman told the BBC: "It was a Nato operation, we do not comment on special forces." | |
Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, said: "We're overjoyed that Steve is free, but deeply saddened that his freedom came at such a cost." | |
It is not the first time Mr Farrell has been abducted while on assignment - in 2004 he was kidnapped in the Iraqi city of Falluja while working for the London Times newspaper. | |
Mr Farrell is the second New York Times journalist to be kidnapped in Afghanistan in a year. | |
In June, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Rohde and his Afghan colleague were abducted in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and moved across the border to Pakistan from where they escaped. |